Ashish Kothari – visionary leader, weaver of radical movements, inspirer of communities that cultivate solidarity within themselves and with others
Ashish Kothari is an Indian visionary leader endowed with both the very human qualities that transform people into friends— unfailingly warm, personable, kind, fun— and the uncommon brilliance and capacities that transform people into thinkers, inspirers, trailblazers.
Most apparently, Ashish loves and actively promotes the diversity and creativity of ‘people together’— communities who care for their territories of life and nourish simple, beautiful and fulfilling livelihoods, activists who break new conceptual and practical grounds, peaceful resisters who seek justice for people and nature. Thus, he has co-created and supported a variety of organisations and networks focusing on environmental care, human rights, radically alternative democracy, resistance to injustice and self-determined livelihoods [see www.vikalpsangam.org, www.iccaconsortium.org and https://globaltapestryofalternatives.org to list only a few of those active today… but he also co-founded Kalpavriksh and contributed, among others, to the Indian National Alliance for People’s Movements, the World Social Forum, Greenpeace, and the International Tribunal for the Rights of Nature]. Importantly, Ashish has also been directly engaged in activism, most proudly in fights for nature and justice in India, from the movement to stop the Narmada dam to patient efforts to provide recognition to innumerable community conserved areas.
Ashish is a prolific writer, always enlightening, illustrating complex subjects from new and positive perspectives [see his regular flow of articles for the large public available in his web site, as well as books such as Alternative Futures: India Unshackled and Pluriverse: A Post-development Dictionary]. He is an inspiring speaker in a variety of formal and informal occasions, and a regular mentor to young people interested in ecologically, economically, socio-culturally and politically just action. Engaged aesthetically with the world, Ashish is a vibrant photographer, keen to reflect the wisdom that transpires in nature… and a most creative doodler.
For decades, Ashish has been an avid traveller, happily visiting distant communities and countries, weaving radical movements for meaningful development and just conservation, and supporting people to share their stories with the rest of the world [see for instance, his ‘Community Voices’ interviews: https://www.youtube.com/@ashishkothari5190]. In fact, this is what we hope that the 2026 Paul K. Feyerabend Award will do: allow Ashish to spread his wings again and doing more of what he does so well, i.e., embracing and inspiring individuals and communities and assisting them in strengthening themselves, in internal solidarity, in solidarity with others, and in kinship with the rest of nature.
